User blog:Snowboardz523/The current upgrade system is absurd and ruins the game
So once I finished this it turned out to be like four pages long which is a bit excessive, so here’s a quick tl;dr: Weapon system used to be fine (granted, a bit boring); but it worked. Upgrading was introduced and it’s a scam mechanic that is used to get players to throw money into the game (specifically on items that will be practically worthless once the next update comes out) while keeping them idle and content because they’ll never be able to realistically finish upgrading, whether they realize it or not. Anyways; here’s the full thing: Let me preface this post by saying I don't expect this to have enough impact to change anything in-game and I understand there are people with differing opinions than mine. As I respect your right to have your own thoughts on this, please respect my ability to do the same. Criticisms to this are entirely welcome but if you plan to do so, at least make them constructive criticisms and offer validation to your standpoint and/or a "solution" to the "problem" so to speak. Lastly, I'm fully aware this is a game on a website who’s target audience is young children to mid-teens, and this is potentially going overboard, but oh well. To start, I think the upgrading system is a unique and at times helpful mechanic that the game can benefit from, however that being said, I think it integrates a couple of serious flaws that nullify some core components of the game. My main issue with the system right now is that it completely undermines the purpose to farm for legendary/rare items. Prior to the upgrade system’s implementation (i.e. Early access) weapon stats were "locked". This meant that a higher-level weapon (of, say, a rapier) was better than all lower level rapiers (ignoring critical rates). Because of this, rare weapons (no legendaries at the time) had a right to be sought after because they were the best items. Even though the community knew that once the next floor was released all the previously top items would be considered (mostly) useless when compared to the new items, they were still worth getting because you could at least go into that next floor as well equipped as possible. But now we can upgrade items, which, if we're being honest means that all items are only acquired at 71%-50% of their "true" power. Going off the idea that the weapon you buy/get from a store/mob is "incomplete"; it makes sense that players will want those items to be "complete" (aka fully upgraded). I'm not sure where the "I need to be the best" mentality comes from in most players, but it's present nonetheless. I state this because it roughly means most players (myself included) won’t feel entirely happy without having their weapons at the max level possible. If you're not maxed, well, there’s likely someone out there who is and therefore better than you- and we can't have that. But this isn't just me tossing a theory around; you can look through this wiki and for every common/uncommon item, you will find at least one person selling that item at +10 (maxed). Rare and legendaries are a bit of a different story, but before I talk about those I want to make one more point regarding maxing an item and that is the complete scam that are upgrade protection scrolls. I'm not sure about you, but I can get my items to about +5 before I start to get downgrades, sometimes less sometimes more. So, I ran the numbers for getting a full upgrade with no downgrades, without using any scrolls: Common/Uncommon: 12.43%; Rare: 3.84%; Legendary: 1.20% Those rates are pretty awful, but considering how difficult it can be to come across rare (not to mention legendary) crystals, you're an idiot to risk a downgrade with those odds; thus, you'll be needing scrolls to (fully) upgrade. If you want to play it a little risky, you'll probably want to start using them around level 5, or you can play it safe and use them from the get go. Either way, that’s 10-15 scrolls, whose only sources are either purchasing them or getting them from a boss with a 1% drop rate. That’s R$500-R$750 per weapon (for just the scrolls; assuming no upgrades fail, which is unlikely, meaning you'll probably be spending more) OR; after running the numbers here's how long a scroll would take to earn from each boss assuming: - you get one scroll every 20 kills (This is a 5% chance as opposed to the actual 1%;) - you deal 544 damage per swing (highest damage for a maxed uncommon item; assuming 2 swings per second) Rahjin: (7.5 minute respawn + 3 seconds to kill) * 20 kills = 2.5 hours per scroll Borik: (8 - 12 minute respawn + 6 seconds to kill) * 20 kills = 2.6 - 4 hours per scroll Ra'thae: (2.5 minute respawn + 33 seconds to kill) * 20 kills = 1 hour per scroll Irath: (3 minute respawn + (41 - 55 seconds to kill)) * 20 kills = 1.22 - 1.3 hours per scroll Sa'jun: (3-5 minute respawn + 1.9 minutes to kill) * 20 kills = 1.63 - 3.16 hours per scroll Now, I want to run through the process of upgrading really quick and I’ll just assume things work out perfectly each time. For scrolls, Ra'thae appears to be the best bet, so assuming we get incredibly lucky, it "only" takes us 10 hours of farming to get 10 scrolls, and for simplicity's sake, let’s say that no upgrades fail. Now all that needs to be done is get some rare upgrade crystals. The prices on these seem to fluctuate highly, as of now they seem to go from 20k-30k vel, but if you want to earn them, you can farm the item crystal on F1. I’ve seen speculation regarding the drop rate, some say 8%, some say 1%; I’m not entirely sure which it is. However, it does mean it could get a scroll anywhere between drop rate one every 13 kills or one every 100 kills. I’ll be generous and limit the drop rate from 5%-8%, the math gives us: (1 minute respawn * < 1 second to kill) * 13-20 kills = 13-20 minutes per crystal; however the actual time could vary up to as much as 100 minutes per crystal. (Note: the 1 second is merely a place holder, it only takes 1 swing to kill the crystal) (Note: I'm not going to bother with vel calculations because they can vary so heavily depending on what drops you might get while farming etc. Realistically, you’re probably looking at close to an hour to earn ~25k vel and find a seller in the current game) So we need 10 rare crystals, which is going to be 2.16-3.33 hours of grinding on top of the prior 10 hours to get the scrolls putting us at 12.745 hours on average (still assuming nothing fails). Ok so what was the point of this? Before the upgrade system, you got your item and, well, for lack of a better way to phrase it, that was it. You didn't have to spend an additional 12-13 hours grinding to get the full effect of that weapon or alternatively spend R$500+ on scrolls plus whatever other amount you settle on with someone selling crystals (and risk getting scammed). While the upgrade system might seem to be there to act as an item booster, a more accurate description would be "Give me a large amount of your time and/or money so you can get all your item's stats". Like, honestly, I feel like I’m talking about EA and Battlefront 2, its practically the same premise of: either spend hours grinding to get the “full” version of the weapon you already bought/earned or use robux to do it, by buying and selling auras for items/vel. Not all these calculations are assuming no failures and a x5 drop rate (that doesn’t even exist), its far more likely you’ll take multiple hours to earn 1 scroll, meaning you could be looking at up to 50 hours to get JUST SCROLLS. (Actual drop rate for Ra'thae: (2.5 minute respawn + 33 seconds to kill) * 100 kills = 5 hours per scroll; need probably close to 10 scrolls for rare upgrades; 5 x 10 = 50) But I wanted to give one more example, which in my opinion speaks the loudest and shines light on a key flaw in the way the game releases its updates. The Sand Aerosol. Hot damn, does that sword look cool or what? I bet we all want one or two or ten of them, right? Yeah, I would too if they weren't a total rip off. Now, why anyone in their right mind would want to fully upgrade an aerosol is beyond me. Their base damage is 419, meaning when fully upgraded (i.e. a 100% increase) they do 838 per hit, that’s sweet yeah, but let's do a quick comparison of top items for a floor compared to the items that beat it on the next floor F1: Darkheart maxed: 36 damage. No weapon in the intermediate shop (released with F2) does less than 38 damage in base. (Note: The power difference in the top maxed swords between F1 and F2 is 269%) F2: All top swords on the second-floor deal 133 damage when maxed. Aside from the Ethereal Edge and Hypothermic blade, all further sword drops from F3 do 136 damage in base. (No shop was released with F3) (Note: The power difference in the top maxed swords between F2 and F3 is 152%) F3: The frost bite and Lazarus both do 336 damage when maxed, however these are both rare swords, and require far more time and money to earn and max than (un)commons (~12 hours farming at minimum, I personally farmed 4 hours for a frost and well over 10 for a silk, with boost on for both). The first sword to beat this is one of the various level 38 uncommon drops on F4 which deal 364 damage when fully maxed. However, if we ignore rare items, the next highest swords on floor 3 (uncommon drops) do 294 damage when maxed, which is beaten by a fully maxed medic blade dealing 315 which can be bought in the advanced shop (released with F4) (Note: The power difference in the top maxed swords between F3 and F4 is 50% for rare items and 38% for (un)common items) F4: The highest weapons deal 504, again these are rare items and the first item to beat this is a maxed golden blade (lvl 43 uncommon drop) dealing 506 damage. Ignoring rares means the strongest weapon on floor 4 deals 406 which is beaten by any fully maxed level 43 advanced shop weapon which does 453 damage. (Note: The power difference in the top maxed swords between F4 and F5 is 66% for rare/legendaries and 34% for (un)common items) The point to these comparisons is to show that even though the top weapons on the existing floor are good, once the next floors low to mid-level weapons are found and upgraded, the old tops (even rares) are outclassed. So, all those scrolls you farmed/bought need to be acquired again along with any extra (rare/legendary) crystals you may need for failed upgrades (assuming you dismantle your old fully upgraded rare/legendary). This brings me back to my point with the sand aerosol. The power difference between top maxed items has never been less than 50%, while the power difference between (un)common items has never been less than 36%, this means it’s very likely that the top (un)common items of F6, when maxed, will be doing around 729 damage even if the rate drops another 2% (down to 34%). Meanwhile its likely maxed rares will be doing around 933 damage, and maxed legendaries will do around 1,257 damage. Now I’d like to point something out. The sand aerosol does 419 damage in base and since it’s the only legendary item in game, you must dismantle a sand aerosol to (attempt to) upgrade it. Quick numbers run (still assuming a x5 drop rate); the normal chance for legendary drops = 0.02% = 0.0002 odds, x5 = 0.001, convert to a % and you get 0.1% or 1/1000 (1 every 1000 kills)): (3-5 minute respawn + 1.9 minutes to kill) * 1000 kills = 81 - 115 hours per aerosol Since the aerosol can double its damage and it can be upgraded 20 times, that means every time it upgrades, it gains another 21 damage. Taking the next top (un)common’s maxed damage (729) and subtracting the base aerosol damage (419) means you need to gain over 310 damage for the aerosol to be better than the F6 top (un)common. That means you need to upgrade it 16 times, meaning you’ll need (at minimum) 16 legendary crystals + the original aerosol to upgrade, which is around 57 days of straight farming at minimum. To take this further let’s say you farm 5 hours solid every day, it’d take you 273 days to get everything. I’m no expert, but I believe more than 1 floor update is released every 273 days (roughly 9 months) so by the time you got there you’d be about another 2-3 floors behind. Ok, conclusion time. I love the game, I think it's well made and it could be far worse regarding pay-2-win factors and what not. However, the upgrading system is quite simply a farming and monetization mechanism disguised as a "feature" to keep players idle and content with the existing game because they will never be able to complete it. Yeah, it lets players increase their item stats (for a price) which helps, but it’s time consuming and costly. If I wasn’t expected to farm for anywhere between 70 - 100 days (like, actual time spent in game farming) to fully upgrade legendary weapons, then I wouldn't have as much of a problem. But the expectations set to "complete" the game are just insane. Possible solutions: In addition to upgrade protection scrolls, give us "upgrade protection scrolls +" or whatever you want to name them, that guarantee an upgrade. If I spent literal days in game to get an aerosol, and then bought a protection scroll only for the game (or rather the developers) to say "oh, hey, thanks for putting in time and effort that you can never get back and spending money on that scroll, but uh, that was all for nothing because your upgrade failed :^)" then I am making sure nobody I know ever plays this game because it doesn’t reward hard work or effort. Another option is increase the boost rates or increase the drop rates. I know the game needs to remain challenging but 1:5000 odds are a bit extreme. 1:500 are perfect for rares, 1:1000 or 1:1500 would be fine for legendaries. Lastly, crystals need a better way of being earned. Maybe let item crystals drop rare/legendary crystals with better rates. Or they could be purchasable through robux. Yes, the game might become a bit more P2W but it circumnavigates the problem of having to farm hours to days for crystals and opens up a new branch of the economy in the game, and would also stabilize crystal prices. Category:Blog posts